There have been many attempts in the prior art by those in the packaging industry, for example, to develop a structure for enveloping the closure of a container such as a bottle, jar or similar enclosure with an overcap as a preventative against unauthorized tampering of the contents sealed within the container. Such closures have taken various forms. One form generally may be characterized as a safety closure for purposes, among others, of childproofing the contents of the enclosure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,035 to Farago illustrates a container in the form of a bottle having a safety closure formed by a cap which is threaded on the neck of the bottle and a cover which is received over the cap. The cover is permanently attached to the cap by bending on edge of its depending skirt around the lower edge of the cap. The cover is formed as a relatively thin casing and normally is freely rotatable relative to the cap. However, when the contents of the bottle are desired to be dispensed the cover is gripped and compressively deformed around the cap so that the two components of the safety closure may be rotated together. The safety closure again may be mounted on the bottle, the cover returning to the non-deformed condition after the safety closure is released upon completion of threading movement.
As may be appreciated, this type of structure is not tamperproof in the sense of precluding unauthorized opening of the container. To the contrary, it may be opened by merely compressing one component of the safety closure into frictional engagement with the other component. Upon reclosure, no telltale sign shows that the bottle has been opened.
Other forms of tamper-proof structure are known to those in the art, as for example, the closure structure illustrated by U.S. Pat. No. 2,162,754 to Schauer. This form of closure is relatively complex in construction and requires a container having a shoulder within the region of the neck to cooperate with a lower frangible portion of the closure. Also, the Schauer container must be particularly constructed to provide the necessary cooperating structure required for display of the tamper-proof feature.